9:30 am: It’s Sunday morning, but there’s no day of rest for the wicked!

10:05 am: Here’s the first stage of the superlaser cannon. It would’ve taken less time to finish if I hadn’t erroneously used the crucial spiral gear piece on the handle of the trash masher mechanism back on Thursday. In the instruction book illustration, I mistook it for the intended hose piece. Thankfully, I remembered using it previously.

10:28 am: Again, I take my hat off to the Lego designers. The big dish is initially built as sixteen hinge pieces with various plates attached.

10:40 am: Goodbye, Alderaan!

10:40 am – 1:05 pm: Even a Sith Lord’s gotta eat.

1:35 pm: I guess that this is meant to be a repair shop. The knob underneath the table controls the gantry in the hangar bay below.

2:00 pm: After spending 15 minutes searching for a tiny angle brick amongst the diminishing parts piles, I decide to write it off as a loss and fetch a replacement from my storage closet. Yes, I am a cheater pants.

2:19 pm: I really like this scaled-down version of Darth Vader’s personal fighter.

2:20 pm: Here it is hanging from the gantry.

2:37 pm: This control station literally controls the superlaser cannon on the deck below. The station turns to pivot the cannon assembly, and the knob raises and lowers the dish.

2:40 pm: Assembly is getting much faster now. I’ve sorted the relatively few remaining parts into individual piles, making it easy to locate the pieces I need.

3:17 pm: A lever beneath the deck causes this pair of turbolaser cannons to pivot in tandem. A control knob on each cannon raises and lowers the guns.

3:50 pm: Almost there…

3:55 pm: Governor Tarkin’s conference room. The table top lifts up to reveal a secret weapons storage space. Just in case Tarkin needs to shoot a recalcitrant admiral.

4:05 pm: Almost there…

4:12 pm: The central elevator seems a bit less elegant than the rest of the model, but I guess it’ll do. The large knob on the wall lowers the platform.

4:20 pm: DONE!

4:21 pm: Hey, what are these bits doing on the floor?

4:22 pm: Crap! I pull out the elevator car and add the missing end caps.

6:55 – 7:25 pm: Time for a peanut butter and jelly break. The Emperor commands it!

7:55 pm: The central deck is complete.

9:20 pm: The Emperor’s throne room in progress.

10:20 pm: This may not look like much, but for me it was one of the “wow” discoveries. In the original Star Wars, the detention bay set used forced perspective and a painted backdrop to give the appearance of an endless hallway. The Lego designers used the same tricks!

8:00 pm: A late start tonight, because it took over two frickin’ hours for Wal-Mart to install a battery in Vic’s Honda. I put the “ultimate edition” of the Phantom Menace soundtrack in the CD player.

8:35 pm: Finished the bottom level!

8:36 pm: Vader thinks, “Three hours and fifteen minutes, and this is what I have to show for it? I may have to find new ways to motivate these construction workers.”

8:45 pm: The first section of deck quickly comes together.

9:06 pm: The second piece takes a bit longer, as I have to dig through the parts piles to find the bricks that serve as the floor of the garbage masher. Disc two of The Phantom Menace goes into the CD player.

9:07 pm: “And I want my throne to go here.”

10:05 pm:The Phantom Menace is over, and The Daily Show has begun. Time to call it a night!